- Re:Verse passage – Mark 1:4-5, 9-11; Acts 8:9-13, 34-39 (day three)
9 But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.
Here in this Re:Verse section of Acts, we find a man (Simon) that thinks very highly of himself. The man was, no doubt, a very popular man and had followers (disciples) of his own. The people that followed him and observed him even compared him to the power of God. Luke tells us that Simon heard Philip’s preaching and observed his miracles; and he believed and was baptized. But then Luke keys us in on how the man followed Philip, constantly being amazed by the great works that were done.
Did Simon truly believe in God or was he more enthralled with the power on display by Philip? He obviously was drawn to power as he called himself a great man. We are not told if Simon praised the Lord after converting. But Luke is quick to point out later in this chapter that the Ethiopian eunuch went on praising the Lord even after Philip was whisked away by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus alluded to this kind of belief in John 2:23-25. Many people saw Jesus perform miraculous signs and wonders and trusted in Him. But Jesus also knew that many of those same people were not true believers because He knew what was in their hearts. They were amazed at the things Jesus could do, but were unchanged in their own lives because of what they observed. Take a survey of your heart with the Lord right now. Why are you following Him? Why do you trust Him? Are you changed by the Lord, or are you merely following an idea of Him? Do you fall in more with Simon or with the Ethiopian man?
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Thank you. Simon Magus’ story baffles me. I’m worried after having read his account, especially when I read about the Ethiopian eunuch who follows. I’m glad you mentioned how the eunuch praised the Lord immediately. But I have a question about Simon that I can’t understand. Simon, by personal occupation, was a magician. So what he witnesses the disciples doing as miracles must have seemed very like what he was doing as a living himself. Clearly, he was misguided by where their authority came from. But he was also a brand new adult convert who, by asking if he, too could perform miracles, seemed to me to want to be included in God’s plan by vocation. It probably would not have occurred to him at that moment that what the disciples were doing came from a very different reality than his own. Why did the Apostle Peter not explain that to him instead of sending him away to figure it out and exiling him from the community, given Jesus’ reaction to Peter, when Peter did not fully understand what he was doing as a new disciple before the Lord?